单选题 .  Britain's secondary and primary schools will be able to exchange details of sports fixtures (竞赛项目), general school activities, computer software lessons and personal messages through a new microcomputer-based network     1    yesterday by The Times Network Systems, a subsidiary (子公司) of News International.
    The network,     2    The Times Network for Schools (TTNS), has already attracted the interest of 80 local education authorities in the past few months during     3    development stage. The schools on the system link into the computers     4    by British Telecom's Electronic Mail Service Telecom Gold. On these computers are more than 50 categories of     5    including a section on careers. The system will have more than 1200,000 pages of information     6    the end of next year.
    The network, designed for education, offers lessons on specific     7    , and examinations can be conducted on it.
    The computer pages will be contributed by sources     8    local education authorities and industry and commerce. According to the creators of the network, schools     9    the country will be able to exchange information at a fraction of the commercial price.
    "The network will also provide     10    links between education, industry, commerce and the professions by helping young people understand the requirements of their future employers and     11    , making them familiar with the new technology."
    Schools using the system can transmit selected pages     12    telephone lines in seconds. Each school on the system will pay $69 for a 12-week term. An electronic back box and the software     13    to link the school microcomputer with the network will cost $52. The aim is to attract     14    many of the country's 6,500 secondary schools and 400 teacher training centers on to the network as possible. The next     15    , within 12 months, will be to market the network to 27,000 primary schools.
    The British network is the start of     16    could become a European operation. The designers want to     17    it to Holland, Germany and France.
    Computers will transform education by the end of the century, allowing more children to study     18    , according to a book published yesterday. (Colin Hughes writes.)
    Ray Hammond, the author, expects that,     19    schools will continue to exist, "they     20    be in the same form as they have been."1.